To Hell with the Church!

Chapter 5 of ‘Transform your work life’, entitled ‘To Hell with the Church’ is causing a bit of a stir! That’s good news! Here’s an excerpt from that chapter:

Where is the best place to ‘shine your light’ and be ‘the salt of the earth’ (Matt 5:13–15)? You need to shine your light where it is dark of course! For many years I made the mistake of thinking that a church’s success is measured by its seating capacity (how many people are in worship on a Sunday). The truth is that a church’s salt, its real worth, is measured by its sending capacity. God does not care how big the ‘salt shaker’ is, rather what God is concerned about is how much salt is shaken from the salt shaker, and how much light the church shines in the darkest places of society.

Let me ask you another question, if your church were to close its doors this week, who would notice that you are not in ministry any longer? Of course the members who worship in your congregation would care, but would the homeless in your area notice? Would the hungry and the abused of your society realise that you are not operating anymore? Would your closure have an impact on the sick and the elderly people in your community? How about the schools and businesses in your community; would they notice that you are no longer ministering in the community?

When Jesus said that He would build his church and the gates of hell would not overpower it (Matt 16:18), there was a clear assumption that He builds his church at the gates of hell! One of the most loving things we can do with the church is to send it to hell. We need to find the places of suffering, brokenness and need, and be the church in those places so that Jesus can build his church there. In my experience those places are not very far from where you work!

What do you think? Where should the Church’s ministry be focussed? Either leave a comment below, or post a message on the discussion forum here.

Thanks so much for the comment. I’m so sorry for my slow reply! Imstill haven’t figured out how to manage comments on WordPress.

Dawn, I think the local Church isnvery effective, but not effective enough to achieve God’s mission all on its own.

Over the last three years I have experienced such great need among people in their work life and workplace, and realized just how little the Church features in the 9-5 windows from Monday to Friday. Just imagine how much we could achieve if we did more ministry in the marketplace.